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On cusp of storm season, NOAA funding cuts put hurricane forecasting at risk

National Hurricane Center, NHC, NOAA, Science, syndication, Trump / DJ Henderson / May 5, 2025

Tropical cyclone track forecasts are 75 percent more accurate than they were in 1990.

The National Hurricane Center’s forecasts in 2024 were its most accurate on record, from its one-day forecasts, as tropical cyclones neared the coast, to its forecasts five days into the future, when storms were only beginning to come together.

Thanks to federally funded research, forecasts of tropical cyclone tracks today are up to 75 percent more accurate than they were in 1990. A National Hurricane Center forecast three days out today is about as accurate as a one-day forecast in 2002, giving people in the storm’s path more time to prepare and reducing the size of evacuations.

Accuracy will be crucial again in 2025, as meteorologists predict another active Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

Yet, cuts in staffing and threats to funding at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—which includes the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service—are diminishing operations that forecasters rely on.

error trend for Atlantic Basin for 1990-2024 — National Hurricane Center Official Track Error Trend for the Atlantic Basin between 1990 and 2024. Credit: National Hurricane Center

I am a meteorologist who studies lightning in hurricanes and helps train other meteorologists to monitor and forecast tropical cyclones. Here are three of the essential components of weather forecasting that have been targeted for cuts to funding and staff at NOAA.

Tracking the wind

To understand how a hurricane is likely to behave, forecasters need to know what’s going on in the atmosphere far from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Hurricanes are steered by the winds around them. Wind patterns detected today over the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains—places like Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and South Dakota—give forecasters clues to the winds that will be likely along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts in the days ahead.

Satellites can’t take direct measurements, so to measure these winds, scientists rely on weather balloons. That data is essential both for forecasts and to calibrate the complicated formulas forecasters use to make estimates from satellite data.

However, in early 2025, the Trump administration terminated or suspended weather balloon launches at more than a dozen locations.

That move and other cuts and threatened cuts at NOAA have raised red flags for forecasters across the country and around the world.

Forecasters everywhere, from TV to private companies, rely on NOAA’s data to do their jobs. Much of that data would be extremely expensive if not impossible to replicate.

Under normal circumstances, weather balloons are released from around 900 locations around the world at 8 am and 8 pm Eastern time every day. While the loss of just 12 of these profiles may not seem significant, small amounts of missing data can lead to big forecast errors. This is an example of chaos theory, more popularly known as the butterfly effect.

The balloons carry a small instrument called a radiosonde, which records data as it rises from the surface of the Earth to around 120,000 feet above ground. The radiosonde acts like an all-in-one weather station, beaming back details of the temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and air pressure every 15 feet through its flight.

Together, all these measurements help meteorologists interpret the atmosphere overhead and feed into computer models used to help forecast weather around the country, including hurricanes.

Hurricane Hunters

For more than 80 years, scientists have been flying planes into hurricanes to measure each storm’s strength and help forecast its path and potential for damage.

Known as “Hurricane Hunters,” these crews from the US Air Force Reserve and NOAA routinely conduct reconnaissance missions throughout hurricane season using a variety of instruments. Similar to weather balloons, these flights are making measurements that satellites can’t.

Hurricane Hunters use Doppler radar to gauge how the wind is blowing and LiDAR to measure temperature and humidity changes. They drop probes to measure the ocean temperature down several hundred feet to tell how much warm water might be there to fuel the storm.

illustration showing hurricane season missions flown by NOAA — A summary of 2024 Atlantic hurricane season missions flown by NOAA Hurricane Hunters shows the types of equipment used. Credit: Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory

They also release 20 to 30 dropsondes, measuring devices with parachutes. As the dropsondes fall through the storm, they transmit data about the temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and air pressure every 15 feet or so from the plane to the ocean.

Dropsondes from Hurricane Hunter flights are the only way to directly measure what is occurring inside the storm. Although satellites and radars can see inside hurricanes, these are indirect measurements that do not have the fine-scale resolution of dropsonde data.

That data tells National Hurricane Center forecasters how intense the storm is and whether the atmosphere around the storm is favorable for strengthening. Dropsonde data also helps computer models forecast the track and intensity of storms days into the future.

Two NOAA Hurricane Hunter flight directors were laid off in February 2025, leaving only six, when 10 are preferred. Directors are the flight meteorologists aboard each flight who oversee operations and ensure the planes stay away from the most dangerous conditions.

Having fewer directors limits the number of flights that can be sent out during busy times when Hurricane Hunters are monitoring multiple storms. And that would limit the accurate data the National Hurricane Center would have for forecasting storms.

Eyes in the sky

Weather satellites that monitor tropical storms from space provide continuous views of each storm’s track and intensity changes. The equipment on these satellites and software used to analyze it make increasingly accurate hurricane forecasts possible. Much of that equipment is developed by federally funded researchers.

For example, the Cooperative Institutes in Wisconsin and Colorado have developed software and methods that help meteorologists better understand the current state of tropical cyclones and forecast future intensity when aircraft reconnaissance isn’t immediately available.

Picture of weather satellite — The Jason 3 satellite, illustrated here, is one of several satellites NOAA uses during hurricane season. The satellite is a partnership among NOAA, NASA, and their European counterparts. Credit: NOAA

Forecasting rapid intensification is one of the great challenges for hurricane scientists. It’s the dangerous shift when a tropical cyclone’s wind speeds jump by at least 35 mph (56 kilometers per hour) in 24 hours.

For example, in 2018, Hurricane Michael’s rapid intensification caught the Florida Panhandle by surprise. The Category 5 storm caused billions of dollars in damage across the region, including at Tyndall Air Force Base, where several F-22 Stealth Fighters were still in hangars.

Under the federal budget proposal details released so far, including a draft of agencies’ budget plans marked up by Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, known as the passback, there is no funding for Cooperative Institutes. There is also no funding for aircraft recapitalization. A 2022 NOAA plan sought to purchase up to six new aircraft that would be used by Hurricane Hunters.

The passback budget also cut funding for some technology from future satellites, including lightning mappers that are used in hurricane intensity forecasting and to warn airplanes of risks.

It only takes one

Tropical storms and hurricanes can have devastating effects, as Hurricanes Helene and Milton reminded the country in 2024. These storms, while well forecast, resulted in billions of dollars of damage and hundreds of fatalities.

The US has been facing more intense storms, and the coastal population and value of property in harm’s way are growing. As five former directors of the National Weather Service wrote in an open letter, cutting funding and staff from NOAA’s work that is improving forecasting and warnings ultimately threatens to leave more lives at risk.

Chris Vagasky is Meteorologist and Research Program Manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community. Our team of editors work with these experts to share their knowledge with the wider public. Our aim is to allow for better understanding of current affairs and complex issues, and hopefully improve the quality of public discourse on them.

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Editorial: Censoring the scientific enterprise, one grant at a time

funding, misinformation, Science, Trump / Kelly Newman / May 3, 2025

Recent grant terminations are a symptom of a widespread attack on science.

Over the last two weeks, in response to Executive Order 14035, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has discontinued funding for research on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as support for researchers from marginalized backgrounds. Executive Order 14168 ordered the NSF (and other federal agencies) to discontinue any research that focused on women, women in STEM, gender variation, and transsexual or transgender populations—and, oddly, transgenic mice.

Then, another round of cancellations targeted research on misinformation and disinformation, a subject (among others) that Republican Senator Ted Cruz views as advancing neo-Marxist perspectives and class warfare.

During the previous three years, I served as a program officer at the NSF Science of Science (SOS) program. We reviewed, recommended, and awarded competitive research grants on science communication, including research on science communication to the public, communication of public priorities to scientists, and citizen engagement and participation in science. Projects my team reviewed and funded on misinformation are among the many others at NSF that have now been canceled (see the growing list here).

Misinformation research is vital to advancing our understanding of how citizens understand and process evidence and scientific information and put that understanding into action. It is an increasingly important area of research given our massive, ever-changing digital information environment.

A few examples of important research that was canceled because it threatens the current administration’s political agenda:

A project that uses computational social sciences, computer science, sociology, and statistics to understand the fundamentals of information spread through social media, because understanding how information flows and its impact on human behavior is important for determining how to protect society from the effects of misinformation, propaganda, and “fake news.”
A project investigating how people and groups incentivize others to spread misinformation on social media platforms.
A study identifying the role of social media influencers in addressing misconceptions and inaccurate information related to vaccines, which would help us develop guidance on how to ensure accurate information reaches different audiences.

Misinformation research matters

This work is critical on its own. Results of misinformation research inform how we handle education, public service announcements, weather warnings, emergency response broadcasts, health advisories, agricultural practices, product recalls, and more. It’s how we get people to integrate data into their work, whether their work involves things like farming, manufacturing, fishing, or something else.

Understanding how speech on technical topics is perceived, drives trust, and changes behavior can help us ensure that our speech is more effective. Beyond its economic impact, research on misinformation helps create an informed public—the foundation of any democracy. Contrary to the president’s executive order, it does not “infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens.”

Misinformation research is only a threat to the speech of people who seek to spread misinformation.

Politics and science

Political attacks on misinformation research is censorship, driven by a dislike for the results it produces. It is also part of a larger threat to the NSF and the economic and social benefits that come from publicly funded research.

The NSF is a “pass through agency”—most of its annual budget (around $9 billion) passes through the agency and is returned to American communities in the form of science grants (80 percent of the budget) and STEM education (13 percent). The NSF manages these programs via a staff that is packed full of expert scientists in physics, psychology, chemistry, geosciences, engineering, sociology, and other fields. These scientists and the administrative staff (1,700 employees, who account for around 5 percent of its budget) organize complex peer-review panels that assess and distribute funding to cutting-edge science.

In normal times, presidents may shift the NSF’s funding priorities—this is their prerogative. This process is political. It always has been. It always will be. Elected officials (both presidents and Congress) have agendas and interests and want to bring federal dollars to their constituents. Additionally, there are national priorities—pandemic response, supercomputing needs, nanotechnology breakthroughs, space exploration goals, demands for microchip technologies, and artificial intelligence advancements.

Presidential agendas are meant to “steer the ship” by working with Congress to develop annual budgets, set appropriations and earmarks, and focus on specific regions (e.g., EPSCoR), topics, or facilities (e.g., federal labs).

While shifting priorities is normal, cancellation of previously funded research projects is NOT normal. Unilaterally banning funding for specific types of research (climate science, misinformation, research on minoritized groups) is not normal.

It’s anti-scientific, allowing politics rather than expertise to determine which research is most competitive. Canceling research grants because they threaten the current regime’s political agenda is a violation of the NSF’s duty to honor contracts and ethically manage the funds appropriated by the US Congress. This is a threat not just to individual scientists and universities, but to the trust and norms that underpin our scientific enterprise. It’s an attempt to terrorize researchers with the fear that their funding may be next and to create backlash against science and expertise (another important area of NSF-funded research that has also been canceled).

Scientific values and our responsibilities

Political interference in federal funding of scientific research will not end here. A recent announcement notes the NSF is facing a 55 percent cut to its annual budget and mass layoffs. Other agencies have been told to prepare for similar cuts. The administration’s actions will leave little funding for R&D that advances the public good. And the places where the research happens—especially universities and colleges—are also under assault. While these immediate cuts are felt first by scientists and universities, they will ultimately affect people throughout the nation—students, consumers, private companies, and residents.

The American scientific enterprise has been a world leader, and federal funding of science is a key driver of this success. For the last 100 years, students, scientists, and entrepreneurs from around the world have flocked to the US to advance science and innovation. Public investments in science have produced economic health and prosperity for all Americans and advanced our national security through innovation and soft diplomacy.

These cuts, combined with other actions taken to limit research funding and peer review at scientific agencies, make it clear that the Trump administration’s goals are to:

Roll back education initiatives that produce an informed public
Reduce evidence-based policy making
Slash public investment in the advancement of science

All Americans who benefit from the outcomes of publicly funded science—GPS and touch screens on your phone, Google, the Internet, weather data on an app, MRI, kidney exchanges, CRISPR, 3D printing, tiny hearing aids, bluetooth, broadband, robotics at the high school, electric cars, suspension bridges, PCR tests, AlphaFold and other AI tools, Doppler radar, barcodes, reverse auctions, and far, far more—should be alarmed and taking action.

Here are some ideas of what you can do:

Demand that Congress restore previous appropriations, 5Calls
Advocate through any professional associations you’re a member of
Join science action groups (Science for the People, Union of Concerned Scientists, American Association for the Advancement of Science)
Talk to university funders, leadership, and alumni about the value of publicly funded science
Educate the public (including friends, family, and neighbors) about the value of science and the role of federally funded research
Write an op-ed or public outreach materials through your employer
Support federal employees
If you’re a scientist, say yes to media & public engagement requests
Attend local meetings: city council, library board, town halls
Attend a protest
Get offline and get active, in-person

There is a lot going on in the political environment right now, making it easy to get caught up in the implications cuts have on individual research projects or to be reassured by things that haven’t been targeted yet. But the threat looms large, for all US science. The US, through agencies like the NSF, has built a world-class scientific enterprise founded on the belief that taxpayer investments in basic science can and do produce valuable economic and social outcomes for all of us. Censoring research and canceling misinformation grants is a small step in what is already a larger battle to defend our world-class scientific enterprise. It is up to all of us to act now.

Mary K. Feeney is the Frank and June Sackton chair and professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and served as the program director for the Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact program at the National Science Foundation (2021–2024).

Editorial: Censoring the scientific enterprise, one grant at a time Read More »

Seasonal COVID shots may no longer be possible under Trump admin

COVID-19, fda, health, makary, Trump, vaccines / Mike M. / April 29, 2025

Under President Trump, the Food and Drug Administration may no longer approve seasonal COVID-19 vaccines updated for the virus variants circulating that year, according to recent statements by Trump administration officials.

Since the acute phase of the pandemic, vaccine manufacturers have been subtly updating COVID-19 shots annually to precisely target the molecular signatures of the newest virus variants, which continually evolve to evade our immune responses. So far, the FDA has treated these tweaked vaccines the same way it treats seasonal flu shots, which have long been updated annually to match currently circulating strains of flu viruses.

The FDA does not consider seasonal flu shots brand-new vaccines. Rather, they’re just slightly altered versions of the approved vaccines. As such, the regulator does not require companies to conduct lengthy, expensive vaccine trials to prove that each slightly changed version is safe and effective. If they did, generating annual vaccines would be virtually impossible. Each year, from late February to early March, the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization direct flu shot makers on what tweaks they should make to shots for the upcoming flu season. That gives manufacturers just enough time to develop tweaks and start manufacturing massive supplies of doses in time for the start of the flu season.

So far, COVID-19 vaccines have been treated the exact same way, save for the fact that the vaccines that use mRNA technology do not need as much lead time for manufacturing. In recent years, the FDA decided on formulations for annual COVID shots around June, with doses rolled out in the fall alongside flu shots.

However, this process is now in question based on statements from Trump administration officials. The statements come amid a delay in a decision on whether to approve the COVID-19 vaccine made by Novavax, which uses a protein-based technology, not mRNA. The FDA was supposed to decide whether to grant the vaccine full approval by April 1. To this point, the vaccine has been used under an emergency use authorization by the agency.

Seasonal COVID shots may no longer be possible under Trump admin Read More »

Universities (finally) band together, fight “unprecedented government overreach”

culture, funding, Science, Trump, universities / Shannon Garcia / April 23, 2025

We speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education… We must reject the coercive use of public research funding…

American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom… In their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.

This is fine, as far as it goes. But what are all these institutions going to do about the funding cuts, attempts to revoke their nonprofit status, threats not to hire their graduates, and student speech-based deportations? They are going to ask the Trump administration for “constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic.”

This sounds lovely, if naive, and I hope it works out well for every one of them as they seek good-faith dialogue with a vice president who has called universities the “enemy” and an administration that demanded Harvard submit to the vetting of every department for unspecified “viewpoint diversity.”

As a first step to finding common ground and speaking with a common voice, the statement is a start. But statements, like all words, can be cheap. We’ll see what steps schools actually take—and how much they can speak and act in concert—as Trump’s pressure campaign continues to ratchet.

Universities (finally) band together, fight “unprecedented government overreach” Read More »

“Lab leak” marketing page replaces federal hub for COVID resources

CDC, COVID-19, health, Lab leak, SARS-CoV-2, Trump / Kelly Newman / April 19, 2025

After obliterating the federal office on long COVID and clawing back billions in COVID funding from state health departments, the Trump administration has now entirely erased the online hub for federal COVID-19 resources. In its place now stands a site promoting the unproven idea that the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 was generated in and leaked from a lab in China, sparking the global health crisis.

Navigating to COVID.gov brings up a slick site with rich content that lays out arguments and allegations supporting a lab-based origin of the pandemic and subsequent cover-up by US health officials and Democrats.

Previously, the site provided unembellished quick references to COVID-19 resources, including links to information on vaccines, testing, treatments, and long COVID. It also provided a link to resources for addressing COVID-19 vaccine misconceptions and confronting misinformation. That all appears to be gone now, though some of the same information still remains on a separate COVID-19 page hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While there remains no definitive answer on how the COVID-19 pandemic began, the scientific data available on the topic points to a spillover event from a live wild animal market in Wuhan, China. The scientific community largely sees this as the most likely scenario, given the data so far and knowledge of how previous outbreak viruses originated, including SARS-CoV-1. By contrast, the lab origin hypothesis largely relies on the proximity of a research lab to the first cases, conjecture, and distrust of the Chinese government, which has not been forthcoming with information on the early days of the health crisis. Overall, the question of SARS-CoV-2’s origin has become extremely politicized, as have most other aspects of the pandemic.

“Lab leak” marketing page replaces federal hub for COVID resources Read More »

FCC head Brendan Carr tells Europe to get on board with Starlink

brendan carr, EU, FCC, Policy, satellite broadband, starlink, syndication, Trump / DJ Henderson / April 15, 2025

He also accused the European Commission of “protectionism” and an “anti-American” attitude.

“If Europe has its own satellite constellation then great, I think the more the better. But more broadly, I think Europe is caught a little bit between the US and China. And it’s sort of time for choosing,” he said.

The European Commission said it had “always enforced and would continue to enforce laws fairly and without discrimination to all companies operating in the EU, in full compliance with global rules.”

Shares in European satellite providers such as Eutelsat and SES soared in recent weeks despite the companies’ heavy debts, in response to the commission saying that Brussels “should fund Ukrainian [military] access to services that can be provided by EU-based commercial providers.”

Industry experts warned that despite the positivity, no single European network could yet compete with Starlink’s offering.

Carr said that European telecoms companies Nokia and Ericsson should move more of their manufacturing to the US as both face being hit with Trump’s import tariffs.

The two companies are the largest vendors of mobile network infrastructure equipment in the US. Carr said there had been a historic “mistake” in US industrial policy, which meant there was no significant American company competing in the telecom vendor market.

“I don’t love that current situation we’re in,” he said.

Carr added that he would “look at” granting the companies faster regulatory clearances on new technology if they moved to the US.

Last month, Ericsson chief executive Börje Ekholm told the FT the company would consider expanding manufacturing in the US depending on how potential tariffs affected it. The Swedish telecoms equipment maker first opened an American factory in Lewisville, Texas, in 2020.

“We’ve been ramping up [production in the US] already. Do we need bigger changes? We will have to see,” Ekholm added.

Nokia said that the US was the company’s “second home.”

“Around 90 percent of all US communications utilizes Nokia equipment at some point. We have five manufacturing sites and five R&D hubs in the US including Nokia Bell Labs,” they added.

Ericsson declined to comment.

FCC head Brendan Carr tells Europe to get on board with Starlink Read More »

FTC now has three Republicans and no Democrats instead of the typical 3-2 split

ftc, Policy, Trump / DJ Henderson / April 12, 2025

After declaring the FTC to be under White House control, Trump fired both Democratic members despite a US law and Supreme Court precedent stating that the president cannot fire commissioners without good cause.

House Commerce Committee leaders said the all-Republican FTC will end the “partisan mismanagement” allegedly seen under the Biden-era FTC and then-Chair Lina Khan. “In the last administration, the FTC abandoned its rich bipartisan tradition and historical mission, in favor of a radical agenda and partisan mismanagement,” said a statement issued by Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky) and Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.). “The Commission needs to return to protecting Americans from bad actors and preserving competition in the marketplace.”

Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge thanked Senate Democrats for voting against Meador. “In order for the FTC to be effective, it needs to have five independent commissioners doing the work,” said Sara Collins, the group’s director of government affairs. “By voting ‘no’ on this confirmation, these senators have shown that it is still important to prioritize protecting consumers and supporting a healthier marketplace over turning a blind eye to President Trump’s unlawful termination of Democratic Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya.”

Democrats sue Trump

The two Democrats are challenging the firings in a lawsuit that said “it is bedrock, binding precedent that a President cannot remove an FTC Commissioner without cause.” Trump “purported to terminate Plaintiffs as FTC Commissioners, not because they were inefficient, neglectful of their duties, or engaged in malfeasance, but simply because their ‘continued service on the FTC is’ supposedly ‘inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities,'” the lawsuit said.

US law says an FTC commissioner “may be removed by the President for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” A 1935 Supreme Court ruling said that “Congress intended to restrict the power of removal to one or more of those causes.”

Slaughter and Bedoya sued Trump in US District Court for the District of Columbia and asked the court to declare “the President’s purported termination of Plaintiffs Slaughter and Bedoya unlawful and that Plaintiffs Slaughter and Bedoya are Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission.”

FTC now has three Republicans and no Democrats instead of the typical 3-2 split Read More »

Trump administration’s attack on university research accelerates

research, research funding, Science, Trump / Kelly Newman / April 10, 2025

Shortly after its inauguration, the Trump administration has made no secret that it isn’t especially interested in funding research. Before January’s end, major science agencies had instituted pauses on research funding, and grant funding has not been restored to previous levels since. Many individual grants have been targeted on ideological grounds, and agencies like the National Science Foundation are expected to see significant cuts. Since then, individual universities have been targeted, starting with an ongoing fight with Columbia University over $400 million in research funding.

This week, however, it appears that the targeting of university research has entered overdrive, with multiple announcements of funding freezes targeting several universities. Should these last for any considerable amount of time, they will likely cripple research at the targeted universities.

On Wednesday, Science learned that the National Institutes of Health has frozen all of its research funding to Columbia, despite the university agreeing to steps previously demanded by the administration and the resignation of its acting president. In 2024, Columbia had received nearly $700 million in grants from the NIH, with the money largely going to the university’s prestigious medical and public health schools.

But the attack goes well beyond a single university. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced a hold on all research funding to Northwestern University (nearly $800 million) and Cornell University ($1 billion). These involved money granted by multiple government agencies, including a significant amount from the Department of Defense in Cornell’s case. Ostensibly, all of these actions were taken because of the university administrators’ approach to protests about the conflict in Gaza, which the administration has characterized as allowing antisemitism.

Trump administration’s attack on university research accelerates Read More »

Trump throws coal a lifeline, but the energy industry has moved on

climate change, coal, Energy, Science, syndication, Trump / DJ Henderson / April 9, 2025

As President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders Tuesday aimed at keeping coal power alive in the United States, he repeatedly blamed his predecessor, Democrats, and environmental regulations for the industry’s dramatic contraction over the past two decades.

But across the country, state and local officials and electric grid operators have been confronting a factor in coal’s demise that is not easily addressed with the stroke of a pen: its cost.

For example, Maryland’s only remaining coal generating station, Talen Energy’s 1.3-gigawatt Brandon Shores plant, will be staying open beyond its previously planned June 1 shutdown, under a deal that regional grid operator PJM brokered earlier this year with the company, state officials, and the Sierra Club.

Talen had decided to close the plant two years ago because it determined that running the plant was uneconomical. But PJM said the plant was necessary to maintain the reliability of the grid. To keep Brandon Shores open while extra transmission is built to bolster the grid, Maryland ratepayers will be forced to pay close to $1 billion.

“There’s some people who say that Brandon Shores was retiring because of Maryland’s climate policy,” says David Lapp, who leads the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, which fought the deal on behalf of ratepayers. “But it was purely a decision made by a generation company that’s operating in a free market.”

Cheaper power from natural gas and renewable energy has been driving down use of coal across the United States for roughly 20 years. Coal plants now provide about 15 percent of the nation’s electricity, down from more than 50 percent in 2000.

In some cases, state and local officials have raised concerns over whether the loss of coal plants will make the grid more vulnerable to blackouts. In Utah, for example, the Intermountain Power Agency’s 1,800-megawatt coal power facility in Utah’s West Desert is the largest US coal plant that was scheduled to shut down this year, according to the US Energy Information Administration. IPA is going forward with its plan to switch to natural gas plants that can be made cleaner-operating by using hydrogen fuel. But under a new law, IPA will shut down the coal plants in a state where it can be easily restarted, said IPA spokesman John Ward. The Utah legislature voted last month in favor of a new process in which the state of Utah will look for new customers and possibly a new operator to keep the coal plant running.

Trump throws coal a lifeline, but the energy industry has moved on Read More »

Federal funding freeze endangers climate-friendly agriculture progress

agriculture, climate change, Science, syndication, Trump, USDA / Kelly Newman / April 4, 2025

For decades, environmental and farm groups pushed Congress, the USDA and farmers to adopt new conservation programs, but progress came in incremental steps. With each Farm Bill, some lawmakers threaten to whittle down conservation programs, but they have essentially managed to survive and even expand.

The country’s largest farm lobby, the American Farm Bureau Federation, had long denied the realities of climate change, fighting against climate action and adopting official policy positions that question the scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused. Its members—the bulk of American farmers—largely adhered to the same mindset.

But as the realities of climate change have started to hit American farmers on the ground in the form of more extreme weather, and as funding opportunities have expanded through conservation and climate-focused programs, that mindset has started to shift.

“They were concerned about what climate policy meant for their operations,” Bonnie said. “They felt judged. But we said: Let’s partner up.”

The Trump administration’s rollbacks and freezes threaten to stall or undo that progress, advocacy groups and former USDA employees say.

“We created this enormous infrastructure. We’ve solved huge problems,” Bonnie added, “and they’re undermining all of it.”

“It took so long,” Stillerman said. “The idea that climate change was happening and that farmers could be part of the solution, and could build more resilient farming and food systems against that threat—the IRA really put dollars behind that. All of that is at risk now.”

Burk says he plans to continue with conservation and carbon-storing practices on his Michigan farm, even without conservation dollars from the USDA.

But, he says, many of his neighboring farmers likely will stop conservation measures without the certainty of government support.

“So many people are struggling, just trying to figure out how to pay their bills, to get the fuel to run their tractors, to plant,” he said. “The last thing they want to be doing is sitting down with someone from NRCS who says, ‘If I do these things, maybe I’ll get paid in a year.’ That’s not going to happen.”

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

Federal funding freeze endangers climate-friendly agriculture progress Read More »

Trump annoyed the Smithsonian isn’t promoting discredited racial ideas

eugenics, race, Racism, Science, scientific racism, Smithsonian, Trump / Kelly Newman / March 30, 2025

On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order that took aim at one of the US’s foremost cultural and scientific institutions: the Smithsonian. Upset by exhibits that reference the role of racism, sexism, and more in the nation’s complicated past, the order tasks the vice president and a former insurance lawyer (?) with ensuring that the Smithsonian Institution is a “symbol of inspiration and American greatness”—a command that specifically includes the National Zoo.

But in the process of airing the administration’s grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information.

Grievance vs. science

The executive order, entitled “Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History,” is filled with what has become a standard grievance: the accusation that, by recognizing the many cases where the US has not lived up to its founding ideals, institutions are attempting to “rewrite our nation’s history.” It specifically calls out discussions of historic racism, sexism, and oppression as undercutting the US’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.”

Even if you move past the obvious tension between a legacy of advancing liberty and the perpetuation of slavery in the US’s founding documents, there are other ironies here. For example, the order slams the Department of the Interior’s role in implementing changes that “inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures” at the same time that the administration’s policies have led to the removal of references to transgender individuals and minorities and women.

Trump annoyed the Smithsonian isn’t promoting discredited racial ideas Read More »

Trump administration’s blockchain plan for USAID is a real head-scratcher

Blockchain, Policy, syndication, Trump, USAID / Mike M. / March 23, 2025

Giulio Coppi, a senior humanitarian officer at the nonprofit Access Now who has researched the use of blockchain in humanitarian work, says that blockchain technologies, while sometimes effective, offer no obvious advantages over other tools organizations could use, such as an existing payments system or another database tool. “There’s no proven advantage that it’s cheaper or better,” he says. “The way it’s been presented is this tech solutionist approach that has been proven over and over again to not have any substantial impact in reality.”

There have been, however, some successful instances of using blockchain technology in the humanitarian sector. In 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) ran a small pilot to give cash assistance to Ukrainians displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war in a stablecoin. Other pilots have been tested in Kenya by the Kenya Red Cross Society. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which works with the Kenya team, also helped to develop the Humanitarian Token Solution (HTS).

One representative from an NGO that uses blockchain technology, but wasn’t authorized to speak to the media with regards to issues relating to USAID, says that particularly with regards to money transfers, stablecoins can be faster and easier than other methods of reaching communities impacted by a disaster. However, “introducing new systems means you’re setting up a new burden” for the many organizations that USAID partners with, they say. “The relative cost of new systems is harder for small NGOs,” which would often include the kind of local organizations that would be at the front line of response to disasters.

The proposed adoption of blockchain technology seems related to an emphasis on exerting tight controls over aid. The memo seems, for example, to propose that funding should be contingent on outcomes, reading, “Tying payment to outcomes and results rather than inputs would ensure taxpayer dollars deliver maximum impact.” A USAID employee, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media, says that many of USAID’s contracts already function this way, with organizations being paid after performing their work. However, that’s not possible in all situations. “Those kinds of agreements are often not flexible enough for the environments we work in,” they say, noting that in conflict or disaster zones, situations can change quickly, meaning that what an organization may be able to do or need to do can fluctuate.

Raftree says this language appears to be misleading, and bolsters claims made by Musk and the administration that USAID was corrupt. “It’s not like USAID was delivering tons of cash to people who hadn’t done things,” she says.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

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